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Stargazing in the Elevator

CELEBRITIES who hang their hats in and around Los Angeles tend to live in private homes where, inside at least, they are safe from prying eyes and enthusiastic fans.

It’s a far different story in New York.

Yes, there are town houses, and yes, many prominent people hold the deeds to them because they don’t want to be seen in dishabille scooping up the morning paper, and because they really don’t relish getting into a thing with the neighbor about how to decorate the common hall.

But for the most part, boldface names who commit to New York City commit to vertical living, and thus, for better or worse, to living cheek by jowl with the rest of us — sometimes one flight up or down, sometimes right next door.

“Part of the reason celebrities live in apartments is that it normalizes them,” said Kathy Braddock, a founder of Rutenberg Realty. “They don’t want to be thought of as just entertainers. They’re mothers and dads, too, even if there are bodyguards in the background.”

Yet while those particular mothers and dads put their pants on one leg at a time — so goes the rumor — and pay the same maintenance or common charges as everybody else in the building, can they really be viewed as just those people who live in Apt 4C or 12D?

That may be a relatively simple matter for the neighbors of Joshua Bell, the Grammy-winning violinist, who lives in a Gramercy Park condo, “because most of the time I’m not home,” he said. When Mr. Bell, whose most recent CD is “French Impressions,” is around, some fellow residents ask him to keep his window open so they can hear him practice. “They’ll tell me that a cousin or a niece just heard me in Seattle or Omaha,” he said. “Sometimes, that’s a talking point in the elevator. Or they’ll ask, ‘What were you doing playing on ‘Dancing With the Stars?’ ”

For the actor Chris Meloni, best known for his starring roles on “Law and Order: SVU” and HBO’s “True Blood,” “the whole celebrity thing is a nice icebreaker in a building, but familiarity breeds contempt: no one is really going to bother you after the third or fourth time of running into you in the elevator.

“Everybody in my building was absolutely lovely,” added Mr. Meloni, who until a recent move to Connecticut lived with his family in a Midtown West condo that is now on the market. “They played it very sweetly and appropriately. If they had a feeling about an episode of ‘SVU,’ they shared it and it was very pleasant.”

Once, after getting into a discussion about wine with a fellow resident, Mr. Meloni said, he ended up in his neighbor’s apartment where the two “tapped a couple of bottles.”

“It was fun being the resident celebrity,” he recalled. “But we would sometimes get stars passing through on a sublet like Daniel Craig” — on business related to the new James Bond movie “Skyfall” — “and then there’d be this buzz that 007 was in the building.”

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Illustration by James Laish

While some with celebrity neighbors are perfectly comfortable inviting them over to raise a glass, others find themselves grappling with how friendly or forward they should be.

One resident of Chelsea Mercantile who, claiming shyness, insisted on anonymity, recalled being pleasantly startled one day a few years ago when Jane Fonda stepped into the elevator.

Ms. Fonda had sublet an apartment in the building for her stint in the Broadway play “33 Variations,” a production the woman had seen and enjoyed mightily. But determined not to be intrusive, she kept quiet. Finally, though, with the elevator almost at its destination, her resolve wilted.

“Mazel tov on your play,” she blurted out, clapping her hands.

“Jane Fonda laughed,” she recalled. “And then she said, ‘Thanks!’ ”

Another longtime Chelsea Mercantile resident, who also insisted on anonymity, in this case out of respect for his neighbors, said that most celebrities in the building tend to stare at their iPhones while in the elevator, “maybe as a way to avoid eye contact with others.

“But,” he added, “the noncelebrities do the same thing. It’s a very New York way to be.”

One exception, he said, was Jay Manuel, a former resident and a former panel member on “America’s Next Top Model.” “I noticed a lot of women would go over to him in the building’s gym,” the resident said, “and comment on their favorite contestants, and counsel him on how to vote. The nature of the show and Jay’s personality made them feel comfortable doing it.”

Elinor Lipman, the novelist, lives at the Osborne on West 57th Street, where fellow residents include Charles Osgood, the “CBS Sunday Morning” anchor, and Robert Osborne, the host of Turner Classic Movies. “My policy toward celebrities in general,” she said, “is that I’m not shy, but I don’t want to bother anybody. I certainly would not stop someone and ask for an autograph or take their picture with my iPhone.”

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Paying attention to the body language of fellow residents is important, she said. “Some people you sense don’t want to be approached.” She added, referring to the Tony-winning composer: “Maury Yeston is my neighbor and I couldn’t have a nicer one. If I knock on his door and say I need a tablespoon of milk for a recipe, he’ll give me a quart.”

Ms. Lipman, whose novels include “The Inn at Lake Devine,” and “Then She Found Me,” which became a feature film starring Helen Hunt and Colin Firth, has occasionally been on the receiving end of attention herself. A fellow Osborne resident, Jeffrey Lyons, a former host of TV’s “Sneak Previews” and “At the Movies,” “called to me across the lobby to pass on a compliment from Colin Firth,” she recalled.

The exact addresses of certain boldface names are common knowledge to New York real estate agents and to assiduous students of New York tabloids. But let’s just say that Nick Jonas, Sam Waterston, Lance Bass, Marc Jacobs, Lisa Stansfield, Kyle MacLachlan and Bobby Flay live in Chelsea. So, for the moment at least, does Katie Holmes. Blythe Danner, Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange currently receive their mail on Lower Fifth Avenue. Jerry Seinfeld and Ron Howard live on the Upper West Side, and until recently so did Alec Baldwin. Of course, such inside information is nothing to bank on: Celebrities change addresses as often as Kim Kardashian changes boyfriends.

“I’ve bumped into both Howard and Baldwin,” said Mark Schonberger, a lawyer who lives in the same building. “I’m generally friendly to my neighbors, so I’ll say, ‘Do you want to share a cab?’

Photo

Credit
Illustration by James Laish

“It’s fun to have celebrities in your building; it adds a certain cachet,” he said, adding that Tico Torres, the drummer for Bon Jovi, lives below him. “But I don’t go to the gym,” he said, “so I can’t tell you how much any of these guys can bench-press.”

The belief that a boldface name sprinkles fairy dust on a building and its residents falls under the heading of “touched by greatness,” according to Arlene Kagle, a psychologist who practices in New York and Richmond, Va. “People often feel more important by having even brief contact with important people,” she said. “If celebrities live in our building, it makes us feel we’ve chosen our real estate well.”

Whether brokers tell a client about the celebrity in residence depends on the broker and client. “Most of the time I’ll say something, just because it’s human interest,” said Tami Shaoul, a senior vice president of the Corcoran Group, “and I think some people get a kick out of the information. But there are some people I wouldn’t mention it to, because it seems a little chatty. I just don’t have that kind of relationship with them.”

Joanna Simon, a vice president of the Fox Residential Group, says her rule is to keep quiet about resident big names out of respect for their privacy. “If someone asked a question like ‘Does Alec Baldwin live here?’ I’d be slightly evasive,” she said. “I might say, ‘I heard that,’ or ‘I think so.’ ”

Ms. Simon, who lives at United Nations Plaza and sometimes shows apartments there, favors the historical approach. “I might tell people, ‘For many years the building was the home of Truman Capote, Johnny Carson, Robert Kennedy and Walter Cronkite,’ ” she said. Cronkite, the venerable CBS anchor, who was Ms. Simon’s companion for the last five years of his life, “was very friendly and would go have drinks in the apartments of residents he just knew from the lobby or the elevator,” she said. “And he’d invite them to his annual Christmas party.”

There is general agreement among brokers that mentioning the presence of a celebrity in a building isn’t going to make someone buy. “But it is validation,” said James Gricar, the general sales manager of Halstead Property. “Great financials in a building are validation. I think celebrities in a building function in the same way.”

For some, he added, boldface names in a building can be a good reason to look elsewhere. “There are people of great wealth who want anonymity and are looking for a safe haven,” Mr. Gricar said. “They would not want where they live to be known as the building where such and such, a big celebrity, lives.”

And buyers who are hugely successful in their fields, and view themselves as the equal of a celebrity, might be insulted that a broker thought they cared about such things. “If an agent mentions that a well-known actor or sports figure lives in the building,” said Frances Katzen, a managing director of Prudential Douglas Elliman, “the attitude could well be ‘and that means what to me?’ ”

Actually, sometimes the client cares — sometimes a little, sometimes quite a lot. “When I was 21 and buying my first New York apartment,” Mr. Bell recalled, “the sales agent said that Cindy Crawford lived two doors down. And I imagined borrowing a cup of sugar from her at some point, but in the eight years I lived there it never happened.”

Jon Capobianco, a senior vice president of Corcoran, recalls representing the seller of a condo in one of the buildings designed by Richard Meier on Perry Street. A couple was waiting in the lobby to look at the apartment, and Hugh Jackman, who lives in the other one, “was just coming in to use the gym,” Mr. Capobianco said. “And the wife turned to the husband and said, ‘We’re buying this apartment.’ The husband said, ‘We haven’t seen it yet.’ And she said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ ”

As the couple was leaving, they saw Calvin Klein get into a waiting car, Mr. Capobianco said. “And I think that clinched the deal.”

A version of this article appears in print on November 4, 2012, on Page RE1 of the New York edition with the headline: Stargazing In The Elevator. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe